What Went Wrong with Turkey?

The Turkey that we once knew as a hope-inspiring country on its way to consolidating its democracy and a moderate form of secularism has become the dominion of a president who is doing everything he can to amass power and subjugate dissent. Since July 15, 2016, following a deplorable coup attempt, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has systematically persecuted innocent people — arresting, detaining, firing and otherwise ruining the lives of more than 300,000 Turkish citizens, be they Kurds, Alevis, secularists, leftists, journalists, academics or participants of Hizmet, the peaceful humanitarian movement.

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) came into power in 2002 by promising democratic reforms in pursuit of European Union membership. But as time went on, Erdogan became increasingly intolerant of dissent. He facilitated the transfer of many media outlets to his cronies through government regulatory agencies. In June of 2013, he crushed the Gezi Park protesters. In December of that year, when his cabinet members were implicated in a massive graft probe, he responded by subjugating the judiciary and the media. The “temporary” state of emergency declared after last July 15 is still in effect. According to Amnesty International, one-third of all imprisoned journalists in the world are in Turkish prisons. Erdogan’s persecution of his people is not simply a domestic matter. The ongoing pursuit of civil society, journalists, academics and Kurds in Turkey is threatening the long-term stability of the country. The Turkish population already is strongly polarized on the AKP regime.

On July 15, 2016, Turkey experienced a horrific event: an unsuccessful military coup. But 2 years after the tragedy, questions about what really happened remain unanswered. What we know for sure is that the failed coup provided President Erdogan with an excellent excuse to consolidate his power: despite widespread claims of voter fraud, he secured a narrow victory in an April 2017 referendum – which was conducted under state of emergency conditions – to amend the constitution and open his path to becoming the executive president of Turkey in 2019. With the coup attempt ongoing, Erdogan claimed, on national TV, that Fethullah Gülen, a retired preacher and a vocal Erdogan critic, was the coup’s mastermind. Gülen condemned the attempt while it was in progress and denied any involvement. He challenged the Erdogan government to allow for an international investigation into the event. He pledged to abide by its ruling. Erdogan did not respond to this call. Western governments and observers have not accepted Erdogan’s narrative of July 15th, either.

The government’s narrative is baseless and fails to be taken credibly outside of Turkey; women and children are victimized in this crackdown; civil liberties, justice, and state rationality are trampled; and what some scholars think of Fethullah Gülen and the Hizmet movement. The brutality of the purges and the suffering they have caused are self-evident. Hizmet, the movement inspired by Fethullah Gülen, and falsely accused by the Erdogan regime of plotting the 2016 coup attempt, is known publically for its service projects around the world. In an age when many non-Muslims often associate Islam with violence and terrorism, Hizmet exists as an informally structured movement of religiously inspired individuals who engage in acts of goodness. Although Hizmet is especially known for building schools and offering high-quality education around the world, organizations inspired by the movement have been involved in charity around the globe: famine relief in Somalia; disaster relief after the tsunami in Japan; responses to earthquakes in Pakistan, Peru, and Haiti; involvement after the Bangladesh floods; and medical treatments offered to many poor communities in Africa. For those who know Mr. Gülen personally or have had contact with the open-hearted and idealistic members of the Hizmet movement, claims of subversive “terrorism,” (in Erdogan’s words) seem incongruous.

Gülen teaches and practices traditional Islamic purity and calls his followers to personal piety. Consider this passage from his Pearls of Wisdom: There is no limit to doing good to others. Those who have dedicated themselves to the good of humanity can be so altruistic that they live for others. However, such altruism is a great virtue only if it originates in sincerity and purity of intention, and if it does not define the others by racial preferences. But can such pious language really speak to the complexities of the modern world? Or does it represent an escape into internal spirituality? Or worse, is the strong focus on “sincerity and purity” merely a cynical front, while behind the scenes Mr. Gülen pulls the strings of power, seeking to bring down governments and put himself into positions of political power? One can only say that, if overthrowing regimes is his goal, he is singularly bad at it. As Graham Fuller asks, “Why would Gülen choose to attempt a coup that’s contrary to all his views, and at a time of maximum weakness vis-àvis Erdogan?” (Fuller, 2016). Studies of the July 2016 so-called coup attempt reveal that it was never a serious effort to bring down the Turkish government. It would require a massive conspiracy theory to connect Gülen with the gun-carrying rebels. For example, one would have to say that all of Gülen’s teachings for three decades were merely a hypocritical pretense. All his claims that violence is never justified in the name of religion were merely a way to mislead opponents while Gülen orchestrated violent political actions aimed at putting him and his followers in charge of the Turkish government. He only preached peace because he really wanted to wage war. It doesn’t make sense. As Goshen-Gottstein notes, “[Gülen’s] views respecting democracy, the rule of law, and opposing terror and violence have been consistent for decades” (Goshen-Gottstein, 2016). If the charge is absurd, then the interesting question becomes: why is it made? Politically, the answer is obvious: Erdogan adds to his power by finding a scapegoat. Labeling the Gülen Movement a terrorist organization also gives him an easy excuse to cripple the strongest civil society organization in Turkey, which helps him in his drive for absolute power.

Human rights violations in Turkey have increased exponentially in the aftermath of the July 15, 2016 attempted coup. Erdogan blamed the plot on the Hizmet movement, and seized the opportunity to throw many of those he considered as opposition in jail. In all, over a hundred thousand people have been arrested, despite a lack of evidence against the vast majority of those detained. The UK Foreign Affairs Committee states there is a lack of credible evidence the movement was behind the coup, and Fethullah Gülen, Hizmet’s founding figure, flatly denies involvement.

Nonetheless, since July 15, especially women have been subjected to an uptick of a variety of intimidation strategies, including rape, the threat of rape, harassment, and other forms of violence—not only by Erdogan’s AKP-led (Justice and Development) government, but also by civilians emboldened by the new climate. Many women whose families are affiliated with the groups currently targeted by the crackdown have reported experiencing psychological trauma. Unsurprisingly, the political turmoil has also negatively affected children in a myriad of ways. Declaring a “state of emergency” (still in place for an indefinite period of time), and abandoning the European Convention for Human Rights, Erdogan has also fired thousands of educators, police, judges, prosecutors, journalists, and shut down (or taken over) schools, universities, businesses, and media outlets. On the eve of the one-year anniversary of the attempted coup, he sacked 7,000 more in a single day. During and after political conflict in general, women and children are the ones most severely afflicted by hardships such as poverty, displacement, insecurity, and sexual and domestic violence. In the aftermath, men tend to attempt to reinstate patriarchal “order,” sometimes through violent means. During the purge in Turkey, women from a variety of marginalized communities (Kurdish, Alevi, Hizmet-affiliated) have been particularly affected by financial difficulties, violence, rape, and demeaning treatment, even during and after childbirth. An estimated 16,000 to 20,000 women are currently held in prison; in some cases, they’re being used as hostages to coerce their male relatives to return to Turkey from abroad, and as an intimidation technique intended to silence dissent among their families. Women and children are the unseen victims of Erdogan’s purge, and the effects will doubtless reverberate through Turkish society for decades. Those thousands of women jailed are acutely vulnerable to physical (including sexual), emotional, and psychological abuse. If they have young children, these children are either left behind, or they find themselves also behind bars. Those women at home whose male relatives are incarcerated risk financial hardship, displacement, and lack of physical security.

In a nutshell, Erdogan’s divisive political rhetoric and his attempts to foster anti-Gülenist sentiments have perfectly served his own political interests within the country, but they have not served the country’s interests in the international arena, as they raise serious doubts about the credibility and rationality of the state as embodied in Erdogan’s personality. One might say that an outside observer’s positive opinion of the Hizmet movement begs the question of whether members of the movement, with Fethullah Gülen as mastermind, were in fact behind the July 2016 coup. Despite all his bluster, threats, and posturing, Erdogan has not been able to produce any credible evidence linking the coup attempt to a Hizmet plot. The sad reality in Turkey today is that the collapse of democratic good-governance has made Turkey more vulnerable than ever to threats that even strong democracies struggle to contain.

Everybody is asking Mr. Erdogan, “Please produce evidence, if you have any, for your claims. Otherwise, why should anyone take your word for what appears to be a slander of this conscientious religious leader and a community that is doing much good in the world? Could your anti-Hizmet campaign be an act of revenge for the whistle-blowing against your family members, or a distraction aimed at preventing a continuing investigation of the corruption charges?”

Recourses

1- Fuller, Graham E., 2016. “The Gülen Movement Is Not a Cult — It’s One of the Most Encouraging Faces of Islam Today,” Huffington Post; http:// http://www.huffingtonpost.com/grahame-fuller/Gülen-movement-notcult_b_11116858.html. (Mr. Fuller is the former vice chairman of the CIA’s National Intelligence Council.